Another installment of stories from my childhood.
This story was written when I was 10. It only touches the surface of the things that occurred while in this location and I plan to revisit my thoughts on this topic. Seeing the animals was really cool but I remember at least three times that I could have died, perhaps more that I am figuring out.
Most times when you visit a national park in Africa, you travel in and around in a well running secured vehicle, of which we did not have. We had a motorbike and sidecar to get in and a jeep that often stalled to get around as needed. Normally, one would also stay in a resort with security, lookouts and, well, walls. We were building one of said places so there were no walls, no fences, no security. We lived in a tent next to a clump of bushes so nothing could attack from one side. The other men lived in roofless huts that were in a clump around a fireplace. They brought thorn bushes to surround the sides and create a little ‘safety circle’ ; they even put up a makeshift grass fence to close the last big opening between our tent and the wall of the storage shed. This did make things a little comforting to at least be surrounded.
The bathroom, however, was a ‘long drop’ with a grass wall around it that was outside of the security of this circle. If you had to go in the middle of the night you had to walk through the wilderness in the dark, towards a clump of trees that could hold wild animals in the middle of the night. There was no light. There was no security. I prayed to never need to go and held on if I did. I know one night my parents had to go and they could hear a lion roar on one side and an elephant moving on the other. I just waited and hoped I’d still have parents and not be stuck in the wilderness with 30 men and no way out.
This is what I thought when I was 10.
South Luwanga
South Luwanga National Park is in Zambia, Central East Africa. Luwanga is famous for its animals. We arrived there from Malawi. We stayed outside because we did not have enough money to go inside on a game drive.
My Dad became friendly with Tim, a man from South Africa. Tim said, he was building a camp in the park and needed a good carpenter. My Dad said, he would go and work there for him. The camp my Dad was going to rebuild was the abandoned “Old Lion Camp”. This was a famous camp, the original one in the valley.
To get there was 42km inside plus 8km to the park. It took one and half hours in a good 4×4 or two hours in an old Land Rover. While we drove in, we saw lots of animals, such as great herds of buffalo, zebras, giraffe, crocodiles, hippos, elephants, baboons and lots of different deer and antelopes.
We had to live in a tent while the African workers slept in three old roofless, stone rondavels. My Dad made shelves to store the food. He also made table and a bench. My Mum and I made a fire place to cook in, and we stacked the food.
The men made a grass fence around us and we wove thorns into the bush behind us. The men also had to begin thatching the rooves of the rondavels. My Dad put a roof on an old shed and from that he made a lean-to shelter over our camp, so we could sit somewhere out of the rain. He also made another lean-to in front of the shed. It was very hot there-in the high 40’s. It grew more and more humid, the rainy season was coming.
There was a lot of animals around the camp especially puku, impala, baboons a leophard and a pride of lions. Every night you heard the lions roaring and when you woke up you might find footprints of leophard, lion or hyena in the mud of the borehole. We had the borehole to get our water. The pump was run by a small generator. Sometimes the men went fishing for catfish or they sometimes walked along the billabong looking for lion kills or for buffalos stuck in the mud. These give us fresh meat.
Eventually the rains came and we had to leave otherwise we would be stuck in there for months. We traveled on to Lusaka, but my Dad didn’t find work so we continued our journey to South Africa.
By Mattea Woodburn age 10. (1998)